


wintersong

by xiomarisol



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Christmas, F/F, F/M, Family, First Meetings, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, doctor santana lopez, everyone else is just there for some reason, it's like grey's anatomy except i've never seen that show, nurse quinn fabray, repost from ff.net
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:38:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24850168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xiomarisol/pseuds/xiomarisol
Summary: The holidays are a time for miracles, especially if you're spending them in a hospital.-or, a series of one-shots about our favorite couples who find themselves in the hospital on christmas day.
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel, Emma Pillsbury/Will Schuester, Quinn Fabray/Noah Puckerman, Rachel Berry/Finn Hudson, Santana Lopez/Brittany S. Pierce
Kudos: 10





	1. all i want for christmas

**Author's Note:**

> this is a repost from 2013-14ish, i think, also posted on ff.net. i'm reposting all my stuff here because i forgot the email and password i used for that account :(

The hospital doesn't shut down on Christmas. I should have known this by now. It's probably my fault, anyway, considering I agreed to this. I didn't want this to be my life, I never signed up for this, believe me. I am Santana Lopez, and I am a medical surgeon. I used to be Santana Lopez, aspiring musician.

Sometime along the way, I just realized that my dream of becoming a performer wasn't going to happen. At this point, it doesn't matter who made the decision for me to become a doctor. My parents were right, I needed stability, and even though performing is my passion, dancing on bar stages for nasty old men isn't what I want to be doing for the rest of my life.

Correction, it _is_ what I want to be doing. But I can't do it, I'm getting too old to rely on tips from old men and minimum wage from my job as a waitress. Sometimes I truly do not want to accept that this is my life. Sometimes I feel like I am trapped in these walls, expected to cut open human flesh and fill out charts, and then go home and wash the blood off my clothes like nothing ever happened. I'm expected to tell people that they are dying, or that their loved one is dead, or that their insurance won't cover it.

I cannot accept that this is going to be the rest of my life. Even now, when I know that my coat is clean and my gloved fingers are clear of blood, I can feel the bits and pieces of the dead, and the sick, and the dying, clinging to my skin. And there is nothing that I can do to relieve their pain. I try not to think about what I'm doing, especially when I'm doing it. I try to fly into another dimension, where I am on stage, dancing and singing and living a life much different than this one.

I know it sounds dangerous, but it's a lot safer than looking at the blood, at the perfect incisions that I am making on human flesh, and thinking about the mess of codes that becomes a jumbled mess in my head every time I try to follow them. It's much easier to think about song lyrics, about choreography, about being backstage and meeting people who love my music for what it is.

Ideally, I'd be doing a holiday show right now, in someplace much more glamorous than this one. The white walls of this hospital would be transformed into a stadium, and the sirens from the ambulances would instead be the sounds of screaming fans from around the world. My scrubs and generic white Nike’s would be replaced with a beautiful red gown and black high-heels that made a rhythmic noise when I strutted across the stage. I would belt out the lyrics to one of my original songs, and the audience would sing them back to me.

Dreams are dreams, aren't they?

“Doctor Lopez! We've got a situation in the east wing!” I hear Nurse Quinn yell as she jogged through the corridor in her own generic outfit. She's perhaps my only friend, the only person I have to give me advice. It's strange, that after such a long time, we still call each other by our formal names at work. It isn't a rule.

“I can't do a surgery right now, I have another one scheduled in thirty minutes.”

“We've got Doctor Cohen on call, but we need to calm her down, she's allergic to most of the sedatives we have and he said not to give her anything right now because her immune system is down and she isn't really hurt. She's mostly being kept for observation.” Quinn speaks quickly, her cheeks are flushed with color.

“Why can't you try to calm her down?”

“I tried, and the whole hospital knows that you're amazing at that.”

“Q—”

“No, Santana. Please, look, I know we aren't supposed to say anything, but I know her and—I really can't watch her like this. Please.” Quinn's voice got heavy at the end, and her chin quivered slightly. Fuck. I can't watch pretty girls cry.

“Okay, okay, I'll be there just... don't cry, okay?” Quinn's eyes quickly light up again, and she smiles at me with pearly white teeth.

“Thank you!” She says and I walk through the corridors, my sneakers squeaking against the floor.

When I get to the east wing, I immediately hear a woman struggling against strong arms, yelling for a family member that obviously wasn't there. This is the worst and best part of my job. When I see her face, the world does not stop moving, and the sirens outside do not slow to a stop, and the smell of blood does not leave the building, but I swear—if only for a second—I just saw an angel.

She has cuts on her face, and pieces of glass in her hair, but I see beyond that. She is beautiful, yes. But she's also bigger than beautiful. She looks like art, and I read once that art wasn't supposed to be beautiful, it was supposed to make you feel something. And _god,_ does she make me feel something. In fact, she made me feel more than something, it was like I had been dead for so many years and I felt my heart beat in my chest for the first time in a long time.

Her eyes—I kid you not—they held songs in them. I looked into her panic-stricken eyes and I heard music. I heard soft piano notes begin to play, and a velvety voice begin to sing.

“Move, Finn, I've got this.” I say as I snap out of my—whatever that was. He quickly moves away, and he has that look on his face that he gets when he's scared. He looks kind of like a gassy baby.

“Hey. Stop thrashing. It won't help whatever it is you're trying to accomplish here, and by the sounds of it you're trying to see someone. We can't let you in right now, because we are busy trying to save them. If you just wait out here and don't distract the doctors responsible for their lives—and yours, you'll both see each other soon enough.” I don't exactly know what came over me, but the girl is quickly rendered speechless. These damn nurses, they never learn that trying to be soft doesn't work.

The girl's lip begins to quiver, and I try to look away. I told you—I really can't watch pretty girls cry. Fuck this, it's Christmas. I can be soft on Christmas.

“Hey, it's okay.” I say and put my hand on her shoulder. Her skin is soft, and I can feel the bone behind it.

“I just... I don't want this to be how I spend my Christmas, and especially not with my brother in surgery.” Oh, a brother. That's good. No—I mean, it's not good, but I figured it was a boyfriend or something. People act like this when there is a boyfriend involved.

“Don't forget you're preaching to the choir. I'm working on Christmas.” It's sad, really, that I'm working on Christmas, but what are the alternatives? I don't actually have that many friends. This is my life now, a land of broken dreams that are out of my reach and working at a damn hospital on Christmas. Death has no place on Christmas, no matter how not-religious I am. Me being gay kind of ruined Christmas for me a long time ago.

“What would you rather be doing right now?” She asks, and I see flashes of light behind my eyelids when I blink. The stage. The fans. The dress. My voice booming and moving a whole stadium to their feet.

“Performing, ideally. I've always wanted to do a show on Christmas.” My voice is uncharacteristically soft, and it almost scares me how soft this girl had me in so little time. I don't tell people these things. Not even Quinn. All she knows is that I had a dream that crashed. It's not that different from everybody else here.

“You wanted to be a singer?” The girl asks, as she sits up and runs a hand through her hair. She doesn't seem like she's too hurt, which is good. Not that I care—well I do, but not in a way I shouldn't. Fuck. Fuck shit. This girl has me wrapped around her pinky finger and I don't even know her name.

“Yes.”

“I've always wanted to be dancer... Why did you give up on music?” I take another look at her, and I can see the dancer in her. Her muscles are lean and her legs are long. I subconsciously lick my lips, and I know that she noticed, but she doesn't say anything. She's probably too flustered to think anything of it.

“Dreams don't always come true.” I say, as I recall her question. Music will always be my dream, but fame is out of reach now. This is my life now, an endless gray haze of white coats and blue scrubs at Lima General. This isn't LA, or New York, this is simply Lima, Ohio, and it's where I live. It's where I will stay for the rest of my life, as my father did, and I will break my own heart every Christmas until the day I give up.

My skin suddenly itches, and I am hit with the need to take a shower. I can feel the pieces of the sick and the dead and the dying sticking to my skin. I can feel their blood on my fingertips, and there is nothing I can do to help them.

“They still can.”

“I spent twenty years of my life trying to make it happen. It's not going to happen.” I say as I pick at the skin around my fingernails where the blood usually sticks. The girl notices, I can tell, but she doesn't say anything.

“My name is Brittany.” She says, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. _Brittany. Brittany. Brittany._ I feel like I could say her name forever without getting tired of it. Each syllable falls so perfectly after the one that came before it in a way that my name never did.

“Santana.” I say, and the name feels a little bit sour in my mouth.

“Pretty. Can you sing for me?” She asks, and my heart does a double take. She wants me to sing? What if my voice isn't what she imagined? What if it isn't any good?

“I—”

“Please. You said you'd rather be performing right now.” Fuck. Okay, if I didn't think she had me wrapped around her finger before, she does now.

“Okay. But just because it's Christmas.” I take a deep breath and look at her before I start singing. I can imagine the flashing lights and the stage floor below my feet, I can smell Christmas trees and I can see the mistletoe hanging from the ceiling. I can see the holiday decorations on the stage, and the fake snow falling. My mouth opens.

When I open my eyes again, she is staring up at me with a wide smile and her blue eyes are shimmering in the light.

“You're an amazing singer, Santana.”

“I'm alright.”

“Are you kidding, you're more than alright. I feel a lot better than I did a minute ago... You're really beautiful, you know that?”

“Oh, I—um—”

Before I can finish, I am tasting the skies, and forget God—she is holy, and she is blessing me with her breath. Her lips taste nothing like gray, like blood, or like dust. They are alive, and I am alive, and as the universe slips off it's axis, I can taste the moon and the sun and the water and everything that is right and holy and good. I can taste art on her breath, and I can only form one coherent thought.

Just three words long.


	2. last christmas

Christmas is a day of heartbreak.

It always has been, ever since I was a little girl in blonde pigtails and pretty dresses. When I was four I ran down the flight of stairs in my house, making sure that even the gods knew that it's Christmas morning. When I reached the bottom I saw a big tree with so many presents under it that my heart raced, and then next to it I saw my father, if I can even call him that now, passed out on the couch, a vodka bottle clasped in his hand. Then I saw my mother with a glass of tequila clasped between her perfectly manicured fingernails, and a slight bruise on her neck. I didn't understand it then, but I do now.

When I was seven I woke up on Christmas morning and cautiously put on the white dress that my grandma had bought me, quietly, because at this point even I had learned that it was bad to be loud in the morning and wake up daddy. Daddy would get mad, and Mommy would cry, and Frannie and me would have to hide in the bathroom and lock the door until Mommy came for us. And then we would be quiet and obedient. Christmas was a chore, a way to make Daddy happy, and even though Daddy slapped Mommy for not having pumpkin pie, we would be quiet.

When I was ten I woke up on Christmas morning to a house that was silent, which was never a good sign. I grabbed my glasses from the nightstand and ignored the way that my chubby thighs rubbed together when I walked, or the way that my arms would stick to the sides of my body when I lifted them, when I walked down I saw the Christmas tree torn and the presents gone. It's sad that the first thing I thought of wasn't that there was a robbery, but that my dad had gotten drunk again. I was right, but I said nothing.

Always quiet, just like I was when I was twelve and I was sitting at the table, a Christmas feast in front of me, but I was eating only a salad. My father said it was a good thing, and that I should be more like Frannie, my beautiful clear-skinned, size-two sister. He was right. They all were. And so as my little heart broke, I decided to change.

When I was fourteen, I ate nothing at all at Christmas. I was a freshman in high-school and on the Cheerios, I couldn't afford to put on any pounds. My father made a joke about how Lucy Caboosey had turned into such an anorexic slut, but I said nothing. Always silent on Christmas, I wouldn't want to make Daddy mad, would I?

Christmas has always been a day of heartbreak, and maybe that's why I accepted working on Christmas. The risk of getting your heart broken goes down when your expectations are low. What's more heartbreaking than a Christmas at a hospital?

I've spent the entire day in a daze, trying to please everyone. I read to the kids at the pediatric wing and served hot chocolate for the party in the mental ward. Just because my Christmases have always been filled with heartbreak doesn't mean that theirs have to be. I'm tired of watching everybody's lives pass by Christmas like it's something magical, when all it has ever held for me is silence and pain.

When I see Puck walk into the emergency room with his head split open, I think _'damn, I guess Christmas_ can _get worse.'_ He seems oddly calm about everything, considering the amount of blood drenching his shirt. I panic a little, even though I know better than to think it's anything serious, considering the way that head wounds bleed like an open faucet.

“Puck!” I call after him, and he gives me a pained half-smile.

“Quinn! Look who it is, you sexy nurse. I'd give you a hug but seeing as I'm pretty covered in blood right now, I don't think you'd like that.” He jokes around, but I can see that the blood is still flowing pretty steadily out of his head, so I lead him into a room immediately instead of making him wait like he would have had to.

“Thanks, Q, you're the best. I hate hospital waiting rooms.” I look at the lines on his face, at the crystal scars that shine in the hospital lights, and watch as he barely flinches as I wash off the blood from his head and instruct him to take off his blood-stained shirt. I dab a wet towel around his cut and suppress a laugh at the amount of lines on his head.

“Judging by the amount of scars on your face, I'd say you've been here a lot” I said, as I washed off the last pieces of blood from his head.

“What can I say, Fabray? I like to live on the dangerous side. Of course, you'd know all about that, pink head.” My eyes go away for a moment, to the days before I was blonde Quinn, and after I was cheerleading Quinn, to when I was hot-mess punk Quinn. It's a time of my life I tend to try not to think about. It's the time of my life where the Really Awful Stuff took place, and I just don't like to think about it. About her.

“Don't, Puck. You know that I'm not that girl anymore. I've changed, and maybe it's time that you do too.” Puck doesn't know that I changed for her, because maybe I wanted to be a better mother to a little girl who isn't even mine anymore. She's thirteen now, and I still have no idea what she looks like, but every step I take I have taken for her. Ever since that Christmas night when she was born and I gave her away to another woman who could raise her much better than I could.

“Now, Fabray, you know I'm not the type to be tied down.” Puck said, and he's right, he's not the type to be tied down, which is the reason that we gave Beth up in the first place.

“Puck, you're almost thirty, you're getting too old for this ' _bag in the wind'_ shit. It's time to settle down, I honestly don't know why you haven't settled down yet.”

“I just don't think I've found the right person that I'd want to settle down with.” I flash into his mouth and look around.

“Still looking? I don't think you're going to find a 'settle-down' type of girl when you're flying off motorcycles every other weekend.” _It's getting kind of ridiculous,_ I think, but I don't stay that. Always quiet on Christmas, always hold your tongue on Christmas. _Wouldn't want to make Daddy mad, would you Quinnie?_

“Oh, I'm not looking, I know who my soul mate is. I'm just waiting for her to realize it.”

“Oh, do you now? Here, follow the light with your eyes. Is it that brown-haired short girl that I always see following you around?” For some reason, the thought of Puck having a soulmate sends a pang of something through my chest. It's stupid, because it's been such a long time since we've even spoke, but there's always been _something._ There's just something about Puck that has always drawn me in.

“Nah, Harmony's great, but she's so high-maintenance. I'm more into blondes, anyway. It's this girl that I know—well used to know, in high school. She has these really beautiful hazel eyes...” I try not to let it be noticeable that I'm blushing, because I'm not blind, he might be talking about me. He might be saying the truth, but knowing Puck, he may also just be saying it to get in my pants. Like I said, there's always been something about Puck, but I'm not that love-sick seventeen year old girl anymore. At least, I promised myself that I wouldn't be.

“Oh, does she now? Here, I'm going to take your temperature, don't bite it.” I put the thermometer in his mouth as I wait for the doctor to come in.

“Hey, Quinn?” He asked, and I turn around quickly, my heart beating fast. I'm so glad I don't have a heart monitor right now.

“Yeah?”

“You're Christian, right?” Am I Christian? I think I am, and I always have been, but I'm not so sure. Where has God been all of these Christmases, where I've had my heart broken again and again and again? Where is He? Still, I'm afraid to not have any faith, because when things get bad, I can always close my eyes and send up a prayer and hope for the best. Where am I without it?

“To an extent.”

“What are you doing here on Christmas?” He asked, and I thought _'I'm here because Christmas is a day for heartbreak and I don't want to have my heart broken again',_ but I didn't say that.

“What are _you_ doing here on Christmas?”

“I'm Jewish.” Right, I forgot.

“Oh. Well, I don't actually like Christmas all that much, and they needed people to volunteer today. Most people don't like to work on Christmas, but that doesn't mean that people stop being sick or getting hurt.” I lie easily, keeping a tight smile on my face as I take his blood pressure. He looks at me like I said something stupid.

“You forget that I know you, Quinn, and I know that's a load of crap. I'm not stupid.” He kind of is.

“You're literally in the hospital for crashing your motorcycle with no helmet on, Puck.”

“That's a different _kind_ of stupid. Has your old man come around yet?”

“Now, I know you know that I haven't spoken to him since Beth.”

“Oh, well Quinn, I know about you thing... about Christmases being for silence, I don't want this one to be about silence too.” Puck spoke, but I stayed quiet.

“I think you're my soulmate—no I _know_ you're my soulmate. And this isn't me just being paranoid here, either. I've checked, I've asked around. I asked Santana if you were seeing anyone, and she said no. You said it's time for me to settle down, right? Well, I think maybe you're the girl—”

I cut him off with a kiss, and I could hear the carolers in one of the other rooms, and I can smell the Christmas trees and the hot chocolate and everything that I've ever hated about Christmas, and for once I decided to battle the silence. I decided to speak.


	3. santa baby

Everyone always tells me that things are going to get better, that things won't always be like this, but they never tell me when.

I have spent all my holidays for the past 5 years in and out of hospitals, fighting a disease that takes reign over my body and yet for some reason, kills it slowly, carefully calculating its next move. Birthdays, Hanukkahs, Passovers, even Christmases (not that I care) have been spent between the walls and corridors of this hospital. IT doesn't stop when special occasions come around, and ever since The Accident, I have spent them between these walls, learning how to live again.

My name is Rachel Berry, I am 22 years old, and I am sick. Ever since The Accident, there has been a sickness in my body (IT.) My immune system is shot, my lungs are failing, my leg is gone, there is no part of me that is not infected with this rare disease. The worst thing about it is that it's killing me slowly and there is nothing I can do about it.

Some days I feel great, and those are the worst days of all. Because my body tricks me into thinking that the fever has passed, that I can breathe again, that I may finally be able to escape these white walls and sing on a Broadway stage. But then the fever comes back, and I am shaking and sweating, my intestines are burning, my head is aching, I can't move, or breathe or think without pain.

IT isn't contagious, and to most doctors IT is a medical mystery, but if there is one thing I know, it is that IT is only here to cause me pain, not to kill me. The doctors say that with one wrong move I could be dead, but there is no wrong move to make that could kill me. They don't know this, but I've been trying wrong moves ever since The Accident, and I'm still here.

The holidays are usually the worst days of the year. When menorahs and Baby Jesus displays go up, so do expectations, and they are never met. Every year, like clockwork, the magic of the holidays spreads across the hospital faster than any disease, and the belief that things are going to get better comes back.

Every year around December, people start to tell me that things are going to get better, that if I pray hard enough, if I believe, that things will start to turn up. And every Hanukkah, I pray. Not because Hanukkah is that big of a deal (it isn't), but because everyone else tells me that the holidays are a time for miracles. I pray to God, I have long conversations with him, and nothing ever changes.

Before The Accident, the holidays were a time full of mixed traditions. Every year on Hanukkah we'd light GrandPapa's gold menorah and eat Daddy's best snicker doodle cookies. Then, on Christmas' Eve, we'd watch 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' and open exactly one present from under the tree. Christmas Day was my favorite growing up, even though once I was twelve I decided that I liked the Jewish faith better. Both of my dads would bake pies on Christmas for Dad's family, and Daddy and I would sing and play the piano.

It was really beautiful.

After The Accident, holiday celebrations were just never the same. I was either sick or on the verge of being sick, stuck in a hospital room or in a foster home with people who didn't understand. It would be selfish of me to ask for anything more than for them to let me be.

I got asked to go to the holiday ball today, a dance for the better ones of us in the cafeteria. Today is one of the bad days. The days where I feel good, and I could almost be normal if it wasn't for my damn leg. It's still hard to walk on the crutches and the mechanic leg, even though it shouldn't be considering it's almost been two years. I wouldn't be going if it weren't for Finn.

Finn Hudson.

I don't know why, but he makes my heart beat faster simply by being around me. He has never treated me like everyone else. Like I'm sick. Everyone does that, when you live here. They don't really _see_ you. All they see is the white band on your wrist, and they treat you like you're your sickness. He has never done that.

Maybe it's because he's a nurse and deals with these things every day, but he has never treated me like I'm a pity case. Sometimes when I need help doing something, he'll do this little half-smile before helping me and speak a little softer, but he has never really treated me like I'm a miserable creature that deserves pity.

That's something that should really be admired. I tried, at first, not to think about him too much. I'm sick—and that's all I'll ever be, so it seemed like a big waste of time to listen to the way that my heart sped up when he was around me. It's hard to find someone who will take you for who you are when you are confined to the walls of a hospital, but he never treated me any different and that didn't fail to give me false hope.

He asked me to the holiday ball yesterday, and I couldn't wrap my head around it.

Nurse Quinn is helping me pull a blue dress over my body, and although it doesn't cover my mechanical leg, she insists that it looks beautiful. She probably has things to do, but she helps me curl my hair and put on makeup. I guess she's that kind of person.

When I see him, he does his signature half-smile and I swear to God my heart is about to leap out of my chest and onto the floor. The people in the cafeteria look a lot happier than they have looked in a long time, which makes me get a strange sour taste in my mouth. The holidays are usually the worst, like I said, and when other people are happy, I tend to get the short end of the stick.

There are decorations of all kinds lining the walls, snowflakes, a Christmas tree, some Kwanzaa decorations on the food table, and even a gold menorah that's still lit even though Hanukkah was over a week ago. They try to be pretty inclusive. There are people dancing with machines strapped to their backs, and I wonder if I'm the one in the wrong here, because they're all smiling brightly.

“Hi, Rachel.”

“Hi, Finn.”

“I got you a present.” Finn says, and he pulls a small silver box out of his pocket. “I know you're Jewish, but I don't actually know when Hanukkah is, or how many presents you're supposed to get for that, so let's just call it a December 25th gift.”

“Finn, you didn't have to.”

“I know, but I guess I wanted to.” I take the box from him and open it, and there is a small gold chain with a star charm hanging off it. It's beautiful, and in the lights of the hospital the star almost looks like it's shining.

“Finn, it's beautiful.” I say, as I lean forward on my crutches to give him a hug.

Instead, he wraps his arms around the small of my back, and I see the mistletoe hanging from the door. He doesn't kiss me like I am going to break (although I was definitely falling), but he still supports my weight so I won't fall and I love him for it.

The rest of the night passes by in a blur of flashes and smiles and colors, and for the first time the holidays aren't full of disappointment. By no means am I saying that were they perfect. They weren't. It wasn't like I was suddenly back home and I could smell Daddy's snicker doodle cookies baking, and the menorah was lit up again and everything was back to the way it was before The Accident.

Nothing will ever go back to the way it was before The Accident. And IT will continue to take reign over my body day after day after day, and who knows, maybe one day IT _will_ kill me. Dying is way overdue. But for now, I think I'm okay where I am. And after I take off my blue dress and my mechanical leg, there will be a gold star close to my heart.

_“To remind you that, you know, even if you are sick and stuff, you are a star.” He said, as he tried to dance with me, and my feet moved clumsily across the floor._

Tonight, my lips tingle where his lips left an imprint on mine. And I will go to bed with a stupid smile tattooed on my face for the first time in as long as I can remember. Everybody used to tell me that things would get better, but nobody ever told me when. Distant relatives or old friends used come to the hospital during the holidays and tell me to believe and that the holidays were a time for miracles.

I never had any reason to believe them, but sometimes I did anyway.

I'm glad I did. Because on Thursday, December 25th, 2014, that promise that they made me every year finally held true.


	4. silent night

It's been twenty-three days since Kurt fell into a coma. That is exactly five hundred and fifty-two hours. Thirty-three thousand, one hundred and twenty minutes that I've gone without seeing the blues of his eyes. Thirty-three thousand, one hundred and twenty minutes too long. Every minute of every day I pray to a god that I'm not too sure I believe in for Kurt to wake up before I go.

There are so many things I want to say that cannot be said in a letter, because people are not books, and everything that I feel for him cannot be brought correctly into words on paper. I've picked up the pen more times than I can count, bringing out my best stationary and the most beautiful gel pen I can find only to find that the words I want to say don't make sense when they are made flesh on paper.

It's harder to deny things when they are written down, and writing something real only makes everything that is happening more real. Everything that I have been trying to run away from only becomes true when I stop denying it. If there is one thing I cannot deny, however, it is the simple fact that I am going to die, and I may not be able to say goodbye.

I know Kurt will wake up, of course he will. Doctor Lopez said it's only a matter of time. He will wake up, and I will die, and he will be sad, but he will live and move on. Sure, he will remember me, but someday he will have another family, and he will think about me every once in a while and his eyes will grow sad for a moment, but it will not last forever. His little girl will show him something and he will forget all about me. And someday he will grow too busy to come to my grave on my death anniversary, and that's okay.

That's the natural order of things and the way that everything should happen.

I'm just afraid that I will die before he wakes up, and he will have to hear it from somebody else, somebody who isn't me, somebody who had no idea about the beautiful thing that me and Kurt had. My heart is failing, and as much as I try to be a good candidate for a transplant, it's not going to happen. Doctor Lopez was frank with me, and she told me that there was a very good chance that I wouldn't make it past this month.

Kurt hated Christmas, and he probably would have hated today too, with all the carolers coming around to the coma patients' rooms and singing jolly songs like it was something good to do. He would have rolled his eyes at them and made some snarky comment before pretending to fall asleep. And he would have loved how they couldn't do anything about it, because he was a sick kid and they were healthy and their survivor's guilt will eat them alive if they tell him off.

I know that Kurt hated Christmas, but even I can't help but pray for a miracle to happen. I know Kurt wasn't a very big fan of God's work, but I just wish that God would throw us a bone. The smell of hot-chocolate is drafting in from the other rooms, and Kurt's room smells the way that Christmas trees smell. I pick up one of his hands—the one without any tubes in it, and I wrap it between my own two hands.

His hands were always so cold, especially now. I blow on his hand, and send up a prayer to whoever will listen, demanding that they bring Kurt back to us. Nurse Quinn told me once that coma paitients can hear what you're saying, but I haven't tried to speak to him because I couldn't handle if that was a lie. What would I do then?

Now, though, I think I would try anything. I'm getting pretty desperate at this point, because there's so much I want to say to him. I want to tell him I love him more than I love the sun and the sky, I want to tell him that I love him more than he loves Alexander McQueen. I want to kiss him until his tongue is imprinted on my tongue, and I can taste him every time I take a breath. I want him to remember how it felt like when I held him, and I want him to remember how it felt like to sneak up to the roof every Friday night and watch the skies pass.

I want him to know that his eyes put the stars to shame, and that no matter what anyone says he is as holy as the water that blessed his breath during his baptism. I want to tell him that he could never lose me to the wind, and that he is the lightning that strikes my chest with shocks that sound like applause. I want to yell from the skies that 'I love Kurt Hummel!' and yell to the sun, "Listen, show off, I've got a man who shines brighter than you, and he wants to float on his back today. So give me only blades of grass and warm waters!"

The clocks hands turn, tick-tick-ticking away. The past increases and the future recedes, and there is nothing we can do about it but pray to a God who doesn't listen to lend us more time before we drift up (or down) into a kingdom we don't belong in. There is one place I belong, and that is with Kurt, in his arms, and even though my heart is barely whole, I love him with every weak piece of it.

I bring Kurt's hand to my chest and smile at him, even though my heart is broken and weak and barely pulsing. I don't know how much this will actually work, but I begin to speak.

"Kurt, you've been gone for a while. It's Christmas, and I know you don't really care, but the smell of the Christmas trees is drifting in through the windows. I can hear the carolers singing, and Owen is running around in his red pajamas again reminding everyone that it's Christmas. Um, I don't know how to tell you this Kurt, but... I'm dying.

"The doctors say it's serious this time, and it isn't like all the other times. I know this isn't what you want to hear, but I am going to die very soon, and I'm just afraid that you are going to stay in this coma and I won't be able to say goodbye. The doctors don't know when you are going to wake up, and I can't wait for you to open your eyes anymore.

"Kurt, I—I love you. I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone else in this world and I don't want to leave this planet without telling you that. My time... my time is running out Kurt. If I could, I w-would spend every last second of it kissing you, but I can't, and my heart—it's failing. I wish I could stay longer Kurt, I really do, but I can't." I sniffle and wipe my eyes on the sleeve of my sweater—his sweater. I feel stupid, talking to him like this, but what choice do I have?

"Please don't stay hung up on this, Kurt. I know you'll want to, Kurt, but don't. It isn't your fault. None of it. One day you'll get a handsome partner and beautiful kids, and I want you to enjoy every second of your life without thinking about me and what could be. I want you to enjoy your two kids, because Grace and Brandon are going to need you. I know that y-you have a tendency to lose yourself in grief like you did with your mom, but please don't lose yourself for me."

I bend down next to him and study his face. I look at it for so long that I have every angle imprinted into my brain so that I can take it into the afterlife and keep it in my backpocket like an old photograph. I will remember the corve of his nose and the way that his chin protruded slightly from the rest of his face. I will remember the stubble on his cheeks and the tubes in his nose as if they are a part of him, because even with them, he is beautiful.

He is beautiful in the way that art is beautiful, in the way that it is mostly a mixture of colors and paints and mindless strokes, but yet you can look at it and something deep inside you will awaken like a light switch, quickly and painless. And all your troubles will melt away as you find yourself lost in the mindless strokes of a painting that looks almost like a picture, but not quite as perfect. That's exactly how Kurt makes me feel when I am with him. He is warm and messy and imperfectly perfect because every single imperfect stroke says something about him and about the man behind the paintbrush.

I can't bear to think of the fact that there might be a day where I will not remember Kurt—or anyone. If the afterlife is real, then how long do I have before Kurt's face becomes a blurry picture in my mind? If the afterlife isn't real, then what happens? Does my love for Kurt just evaporate into thin air along with every other memory I have ever dared to call true?

I grab Kurt's hand and hold it in mine, it is small and delicate, every nail perfectly manicured in the way that he liked. I can feel a small throbbing heartbeat in his thumb, a one-two, one-two rythm that matches his heartbeat and the rise and fall of his chest.

Before I can think to stop myself, I am crying. My chest is moving in violent loud sobs and I'm clutching Kurt's palm close to my chest, rocking it. Something is set loose inside me, and I can't stop my unraveling. I picked a hole in my emotions in the way that you sometimes pick a hole in one of your favorite sweaters, and it was only a matter of time before this happened. Before I began to unravel.

It is unbearable to think of leaving, and the reality of it hits me like a bus, suddenly, without even the courtesy to warn me.

There is something loose inside me, but apparently there is something loose inside Kurt as well, because I can feel a slight pressure on my thumb where something is clutching it. His monitor is changing, the numbers moving in ways that I do not understand.

He is squeezing my hand.

He is squeezing my hand.

_He is squeezing my hand._

I can't form a complete thought, but there smell of Christmas trees is wafting in from the open window, and Nurse Quinn is walking in, and _dear god_ , he was squeezing my hand.


	5. mistletoe

Everyone acts like Christmas was an excuse to be dirty. It isn't. People at the hospital don't understand that, especially in the mental ward where I stay. People leave half-drunk hot chocolate mugs on the table instead of in the sink, where they belong. They forget to wipe down the tables, they forget to wash the fruits for an appropriate amount of time before they eat them. They forget to use the hand sanitizer that is so nicely put out for them.

That's why I don't go outside of my room on Christmas.

My doctor says I should. She says that being around clutter will help me accept that life is messy. I don't know what there is to accept about mess, being clean is a good thing. _Better safe than sorry, right?_ I don't really know when or how or why I started obsessing over everything being clean, but I'm not actually that curious to understand the _how_ of it all. I'm okay with having order in my life... at least, I should be.

I don't know how I feel about it anymore. Sometimes I want to wipe everything down fifty-two times before I use it, even if it's new, and sometimes I want to be better (or worse?) Sometimes I want to be able to go out with my husband and my baby and not have a panic attack when he spits up on my Sunday sweater.

Daniel Schuester.

He's the reason I even agreed to come here. My OCD was getting better, it really was, but then Daniel came along and I couldn't handle the mess of a newborn baby. Will suggested I come here and try to deal with everything. I like to think I'm getting better, but I don't know if I am. I haven't seen Danny since I got here, and my heart aches for him in a way that I didn't know it could.

That's my baby, you know?

I thought that the worst day of my life would be the day that I gave birth for a long time. Labor is messy and painful and dirty, which is all the things that I've been trying to run away from. My OCD controls me sometimes in ways that I didn't know it could, and it tainted the day of my son's birth, because instead of looking at him the way that a mother should, I looked at him like he was something dirty and something painful. I thought it would be the worst day of my life, but it isn't.

But it's today.

Because it's my son's first Christmas and I'm not there to experience it with him.

Maybe it's God's way. Maybe Daniel will be better off without me, an emotionally unstable mother that can't provide for him what I need to provide for him. God has never abandoned him, according to the letters that I get from Will every Saturday at 12:45. I'm not the best mother, but I need to get better, for Daniel and for Will and for God who looks over me—and maybe even for myself.

What is a mother without their child?

A woman without her husband is a widow, and a child without their parent is an orphan, but what is a mother without her child? Nothing. I need to get better, even if a part of me is still convinced that there is nothing wrong with me, because Daniel deserves better than this. Will thinks I'm dangerous to have around Daniel until I'm better, and I don't know if I agree with him or not, but he calls the shots now.

Christmas is no excuse to get dirty—but it's supposed to be a time for miracles, right?

I need a miracle right now.

I get on my knees next to the bed and close my eyes.

_'Um—I know that you have a lot on your mind. But I need strength right now, because it's Christmas and I am not with my son. I want to be, and I think it might help if I join everyone else outside and show the doctor that I'm getting better. God—please. Give me strength. Amen.'_

I want to cry, something is set loose inside me, a ball of determination. I wash my hands one last time before I go out. The outside is a sea of people, of germs, of messes, of all of these uncontrollable things that make my skin crawl. I see my doctor give me a wink and write something down, but I don't know what _she's_ so happy about.

I should see happiness falling from the ends of the Mistletoe that hangs from the door, from the ornaments on the Christmas tree, from the steamy mugs of hot chocolate in people's hands. It looks like Christmas. But all I see is mess. Things are out of place, germs cover every surface, and everything is dirty. I twist my hands into tight fists, trying to suppress the urge to get my travel wipes and wipe every surface clean.

I feel a hand on my shoulder, and when I move to push it away, I see a familiar head of hair and a small body. Is that—? No. He wouldn't... but he did.

Will and Daniel. I move forward to hug them, and for a second when I see them I don't see germs. I don't see mess, and even though I can see a small white stain on Daniel's bib, all I can think is that I missed them. All I see is love. Will embraces me like he means it, he holds the small of my back and doesn't let go until I pull away.

Daniel is big now, I hardly recognize him. My own child, and I hardly recognize him because I let myself be controlled by some disorder.

"What are- What are you doing here?" I struggle to speak, because there is something like a ball of emotion lodged in my throat.

"Doctor Kimeah called, she thought it would do you good to see us today."

"Oh." I couldn't resist, I smiled and pulled him in for a kiss.

"Emma, she says that you can come home. She thinks it would do you good to come home." Will's face looks relieved, but there is a panic inside me. What if I'm not ready? What if I can't be around the baby? I haven't been home in so long... would I even recognize the place? And the germs? A rush of uncertainty comes over me, but Will smiles shakily at me and I manage to control myself.

"She... but, I'm not better yet. I'm trying, Will, but..."

"Emma, do you remember the way you were when you were admitted here? You couldn't even look at me without spraying me with Lysol. I know you're not great yet, but you're better, and you kissed me and hugged Daniel without having a panic attack. I think that counts as progress."

"I love you, Will." I said, it left me in a breath, it's what I've been thinking and trying to say this whole time. God, I love my husband, and I don't know how many people can actually say that. He's stayed through my crazy in the way that nobody does.

He is a piece of art, he hangs above the fireplace and even as my crazy burns his edges, he stays. He stays because he loves me, and not a lot of people ever do.

There is something magical about Christmas, even though it is no excuse to be dirty. Christmas, though, it brings a sort of magical madness with it every year, and you have no choice but to buy into it. When I look at the bright lights and stockings hung over the ceiling of a mental ward, for god's sake, and look back down at these patients smiling and laughing, I can feel the true meaning of Christmas.

It comes and goes every year like clockwork, and every year we build up expectations for it, but we never meet them. But that's the strange thing about Christmas, that even though we don't meet those expectations, we feel like winners on the other end.

Maybe this isn't ideally how I'd like to be spending my son's first Christmas. But I'm going home soon, and there will be many more Christmases to come that will be no better or worse than this one.

I can imagine them, I can taste them right there on the tip of my tongue, Christmases where I can decorate a real Christmas tree without wiping down all the ornaments twenty-two times beforehand. Christmases where I am huddled around a television with my son and my husband as we watch 'A Charlie Brown Christmas.'

Happiness is just within reach, if I stretch my fingers past the sleeves of this disorder that I have always known I can almost touch it, I can feel it on my fingertips, and for myself, for Daniel, for Will, for God—I must reach.


End file.
